• Mark Appel likely lost out on at least $2 million by the Astros and Twins passing on him in favor of Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, and there isn't much Scott Boras can do about it.

• I know absolutely nothing about hockey, but Ben Goessling's detailed timeline of how the Wild snagged Zach Parise and Ryan Suter was still a very interesting read.

• I subscribe to 50 podcasts at this point, but two that have recently moved to the front of the line are Stop Podcasting Yourself with Graham Clark and Dave Shumka and Throwing Shade with Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi. I listen to both immediately when they come out each week.

• This might be the closest I'll ever come to having something I wrote in an actual newspaper, so my mom was pretty excited.

“Gardenhire added that left-hander Glen Perkins was unavailable to pitch and that right-hander Jared Burton was SLATED TO SERVE AS CLOSER. ” (caps mine)

That’s from the MLB.com recap of yesterday’s game.

Why do you have to slate anyone as closer if the game is slipping away in the 8th? Bring your best reliever in earlier to get out of the jam!! Gardy, is not the brightest bulb in the lot. Slated as the closer. Never heard anything so stupid. You don’t need a closer if your other pitchers blow the lead.

Were we or were we not facing the Tigers’ best hitters in the 8th? Prince Fielder hit the big HR, right? He’s one of their best hitters. THEN WHY DON’T YOU HAVE YOUR BEST RELIEVER IN THE GAME IN THE 8TH? Get out of the 8th with the lead, and if Burton can’t do the 9th, find some other schlub to face the worthless bottom of the Tigers order. Not too hard to figure out.

Gardy was effectively saying Burton was unavailable to pitch before the 9th inning. Do you understand how screwed up that line of thinking is?

Perkins was unavailable from overuse. I get that. I do not, however, understand why Burton was unavailable against the Tigers best hitters.

Fireable offense.

I’m done with Gardy. DONE DONE DONE!!!!!

Why isn’t Gardy held accountable for such a silly excuse as Burton was “slated as closer.”

Crazy Tom in Rochester

Matt, don’t expect Aaron to make the same mistake two days in a row. But if you read his blog long enough or dig through the archives, you’re sure to find him criticizing this aspect of conventional bullpen usage, albeit with less shouting than you’ve employed.

Most of the rest of understand this too. I didn’t see yesterday’s game, being in the wrong state and all, but now that I’ve seen the boxscore I’m rather grumpy about it. Also, I watched the Texas-Chicago game on Wednesday, and was equally peeved when the Rangers lost it in the 10th while saving Nathan for the lead they never got.

I’m not ready to jump on the “Fire Gardy” bandwagon yet, and certainly not over this. Remember that closer-related silliness is ubiquitous in the game today; any manager you can find to replace Gardenhire will do the same dumb thing.

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